Cavanaugh or Death (15 page)

“And by ‘this' you mean...?” Davis asked her before the investigator could.

“The coffin,” she told both of them. “Look.” She pointed to the tiny rip she'd spotted. “Something was put in here—and then retrieved.”

“You sure?” O'Shea asked uncertainly. He examined the spot she'd pointed out. “It hardly looks like it's been touched.”

“That's because whoever is doing this is being very, very careful. In fact, they're being
meticulous.
” She emphasized the word. Rising to her feet, she dusted off her hands and turned to Davis. “I think that it's time to bring Mr. Weaver in for questioning.”

The request could only mean one thing. “Then you do think he's in on it.”

Moira hadn't made up her mind about that yet. “Maybe yes, maybe no, but he's definitely seen something or knows something he's not talking about. We're going to loosen his tongue.”

“You want me in on the guy's interrogation?” Davis asked her. With Moira, he was never really certain about what motivated her.

She answered as if there had never been any doubt. “Sure.”

“Then it's going to be good cop, bad cop?” he asked, assuming he was right.

She grinned at him. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of good cop, evil cop. You do have a way of striking fear into people's hearts when you scowl,” she pointed out.

He snorted, acknowledging the obvious. “You're not fearful.”

She flashed a completely phony smile. “That's because I know your secret.”

“Which is?” he asked suspiciously, having no clue what she was talking about.

“Deep down—” she poked his sternum “—there is a marshmallow center.”

His frown went deep. “That doesn't even merit a reply.”

“You can't think of one because you know I'm right,” Moira gloated.

Davis bit back a few choice words—but it definitely wasn't easy.

Chapter 14

S
t. Joseph Cemetery's hulking groundskeeper appeared to be a great deal less confident and far more visibly nervous seated at the table in one of the three interrogation rooms on the precinct's third floor.

Away from his familiar surroundings, Avery Weaver gave the impression of being a fish out of water—a very panicked fish who was on the verge of losing the ability to survive.

Less than ten minutes into the interrogation and the man was sweating profusely despite the fact that the temperature within the precinct as well as the room itself was rather cool.

“Let's go over this again,” Moira said patiently. “What do you know about the four coffins that were disturbed?”

“I don't know nothing. Only that you dug them up,” Weaver protested defensively. He was rocking to and fro ever so slightly, his bravado gone.

“How long have you worked at the cemetery?” Moira asked him.

“Almost ten years,” Weaver responded, his eyes wide, as if he was expecting to be verbally ambushed at any second. “Look, I was asleep. Whenever these ‘disturbances' were supposed to have happened, I was asleep,” he cried.

Davis looked at him pointedly, getting into the man's face. “If you don't know when they were supposed to have happened, how would you know if you were asleep at the time?” he asked.

Unlike Moira, he didn't bother approaching the subject slowly. His voice was gruff and intimidating.

Weaver began to noticeably shake.

“'Cause I'm asleep every night,” the groundskeeper cried. He appeared exceedingly uncomfortable about making the admission.

Moira looked at Weaver with mingled surprise and exasperation. “Seriously?”

The man's wide, sloping shoulders rose and fell in a hapless shrug. “I fall asleep every night. Nothing happens at the cemetery at that hour—except maybe on Halloween,” he amended. And then he regarded the two detectives ruefully. “I mean, it didn't until this thing with the graves started up.”

“And you
never
heard anything?” Moira pressed the man.

“Can I help it if I'm a sound sleeper?” Weaver returned helplessly. “And these guys who mess with the graves, they don't make any noise on purpose,” he added as if that served as his excuse.

“But aren't you supposed to patrol the grounds?” Davis asked accusingly.

Weaver squirmed in his seat. “They don't pay me very much and, like I said, nothing happens at that hour, except maybe a couple of teenagers wanting to see what it's like to make love in a cemetery.”

The idea of making love on a gravesite was less than appealing to Moira, but she managed to keep her reaction from registering on her face or in her voice as she asked the groundskeeper, “You saw them?”

“More like I heard them. You know, some heavy breathing and then the sound of them running away,” Weaver answered.

Which could have been the grave robbers, Moira thought—if she could just figure out what it was that was being robbed. Weaver wasn't bright enough to know the difference.

“So what you're saying is that you don't know anything about these attempted grave robberies, is that it?” Moira demanded.

Weaver crossed his heart and raised his hand as if taking a solemn pledge. “On my mother's grave, I don't know anything.”

“Well, that's rather appropriate,” Moira muttered under her breath. She was certain he would have confessed to his part in this—if he'd had a part in this. Apparently—at least for now—he was just an ignorant bystander.

“And none of these names mean anything to you?” Davis asked, turning the list of the four names inscribed on the gravestones around so that Weaver was able to read them clearly.

Weaver shook his head so hard, Moira thought it was in danger of falling off.

“No.” The groundskeeper's small, dark eyes moved back and forth like loose marbles. “Can I go now?”

Rather than sound arrogant, the way he initially had when the investigation had first started more than a week ago, he was almost pleading now, addressing his words to both detectives because he apparently wasn't sure which of them was in charge and he didn't want to take a chance on offending either of them.

“You can go,” Davis finally told him after a prolonged pause. “Just don't leave town. If I have to come looking for you, neither one of us is going to be very happy,” he warned.

Weaver's eyes looked as if they were about to pop out. “No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. I mean—”

“Just go,” Moira told him wearily, waving her hand toward the door.

Once the groundskeeper had scurried out like a field mouse that had avoided being swatted out of the room with a straw broom, Moira turned to look at her reluctant partner.

“Well, you certainly struck fear into his heart.”

“Just wanted to make sure he wasn't going to run out of town,” Davis replied.

Moira laughed shortly, thinking of how unsteady Weaver had seemed. “I doubt if he's able. You made him weak in the knees—and definitely not in a good way.”

Davis frowned at her, obviously confused by what she was telling him. “Just what's that supposed to mean, Cavanaugh?”

Moira stared at him. “Oh c'mon, anyone who looks the way you do has got to be familiar with that expression. Think about it. ‘Making someone weak in the knees' usually goes right along with a racing pulse and a pounding heart.”

His scowl deepened as her message registered. “You have got one
hell
of an imagination, Cavanaugh,” he told her, marveling at her.

Moira caught him completely off guard when she winked at him. “Maybe I just have one hell of a love life,” she countered.

Davis looked at her for a long moment, his gaze almost penetrating.

She had no way of knowing what he was thinking or if she had managed to stir his curiosity—as well as his imagination—with that one seemingly harmless, throwaway line.

But she had. She'd gotten him wondering just what her private life was like.

And how it would feel to kiss that mouth of hers that seemed to never stop moving.

Granted she was a more than passably attractive pain-in-the-butt, but up until now, he hadn't given any real thought to her life outside the precinct.

Of course the woman had a love life, he admonished himself. She was outgoing, vibrant and could probably make friends with the devil himself if she had to. And she had this trait, he'd noted. A trait that made the person she was talking to feel as if he—or she—was the only person in the room even if the room was stuffed to maximum capacity with people.

It was a gift, he supposed, one that went a long way toward making the woman popular—as well as damn desirable.

Davis almost jolted as the last word jumped out at him from out of nowhere, all but setting the surrounding world on fire.

What the hell was he doing, having thoughts like that about a woman who was the bane of his existence? The only thing he desired about Moira Cavanaugh was to have her go away,
stay
away and stop bothering him.

Because he'd fallen into silence and he realized that Moira was looking at him as if waiting for him to say something, Davis muttered, “Remind me to send my condolences.”

Well, that certainly came out of nowhere.
“To who?” she asked him.

“To whomever you're having that love life with.” Davis all but snapped her head off. “Can we get back to work now?”

The smile she flashed at him seemed to say that she knew what he was attempting to do and that she had his number.

All he knew was that he
didn't
like the way her smile seemed to corkscrew into his system, all but short-circuiting everything it came in contact with.

“Ready when you are,” Moira announced brightly.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “I'm ready,” he growled.

But he wasn't, he realized.

Whatever else he might have been—and now was—he was definitely
not
ready for her.

Desperate for any sort of a diversion that would get her attention away from this personal venue they seemed to be traveling, Davis grasped the first thing that came into his head.

“We need to check out the other cemetery.”

The words had practically burst out of his mouth, catching her entirely off guard. She looked at him, not even sure she'd heard him correctly, and asked, “What?”

“Aurora has another cemetery in the city, doesn't it?”

She had to stop to think for a second before she could answer. “Yes. It's a smaller one. I think it was here before they built St. Joe's,” she recalled from her initial research. “Why?”

“Well, maybe some of the graves at that cemetery have been disturbed, too,” Davis suggested. “If they have, maybe we'll find the key to all this at the other cemetery.”

Davis wasn't prepared for her face lighting up the way that it did.

And he
definitely
wasn't prepared for that sudden quickening he felt in the pit of his stomach as he witnessed her reaction.

Maybe this whole “partner” thing was getting to him, making him anticipate things going wrong on some level and that was why he had been so out of whack lately. Waiting for a shoe to drop.

“That's great,” she told him. “I hadn't thought of that.”

She wasn't being defensive, wasn't acting as if the same thought had occurred to her and she just hadn't voiced it. Instead she was saying it as if she was
complimenting
him.

For a second he fell into silence.

Since he was no longer accustomed to working with a partner, he wasn't used to being on the receiving end of any sort of praise—not that either one of his two late partners had praised him outright. But approval—and that went both ways—had been tacitly understood.

Words hadn't been necessary, even though hearing them now felt good in an unsettling sort of way.

He wasn't happy about it.

Feeling awkward, Davis shrugged off her obvious approval.

“Yeah, well...seems only logical. You want to take any backup with us?” he asked, ready to call in the officers they'd made use of previously. To be honest with himself, right now the thought of having a few more bodies around acting as silent buffers was welcome.

He was surprised when Moira shook her head.

“Not yet,” she told him. “Let's have a look around the place first and see if we can make nice with whoever's in charge over there.”

“Make nice,” Davis echoed reprovingly as they left the squad room and headed down the corridor to the elevator. “You make it sound like we're going to be dealing with a bunch of kindergarten kids.”

She smiled indulgently as they reached the elevator. Moira pressed the down button. “Okay, how would you like to refer to it?”

“How about calling it an investigation?” he suggested tersely.

Moira inclined her head. “If that's what'll make you happy.”

He blew out an exasperated breath. He was tired of this restless feeling that kept infiltrating his system because of her.

“What would have made me ‘happy,'” he told her, “is if you hadn't been jogging by the cemetery that morning. Or, if you had to, that you'd done it either half an hour sooner or half an hour later.”

The implication was clear. Half an hour either way and their paths wouldn't have crossed—and he wouldn't be working with her now.

Rather than taking offense and backing off the way he'd thought she would, Davis saw laughter in the woman's eyes.

“You know that you don't mean that,” she told Davis as she stepped into the elevator car first.

She kept her hand out, blocking the beam that in turn signaled the power grid that there was something obstructing the path. It kept the elevator doors from closing prematurely.

When Davis got on, she withdrew her hand and the doors closed.

“I never meant anything more in my life,” he muttered under his breath.

Moira pretended she didn't hear.

But the smile on her lips told Davis that she had.

* * *

Unlike the initially surly, combative groundskeeper at St. Joseph's Cemetery, Jack Campbell, Weaver's counterpart at Aurora's First Cemetery, was only too happy to answer any and all questions, as well as to offer his assistance in any manner he could.

Obviously lonely, the balding, fifty-something groundskeeper seemed delighted to have someone to talk to—and he talked up a storm, going on and on in response to each and every question put to him, even the simplest ones.

Campbell personally took them on a tour of the smaller cemetery, offering commentary on almost each and every grave.

And he appeared gleeful when, toward the tail end of the little tour he'd conducted, one more disturbed grave was discovered, adding it to the total from St. Joseph's and bringing the final number up to five disturbed graves in all.

According to the date carved into the headstone, Maryanne Wilson had been laid to rest twenty and a half years ago.

That, Moira noted, made the woman's grave the first in this small, artificial group. When she exchanged glances with Davis, she could see that the same thought had occurred to him.

“Would it be possible for you to look up her records to see if there's a next of kin for us to get in contact with?” Moira requested.

She'd expected the man to get on it immediately. Instead, he made no move except to look at her with a puzzled expression. Apparently, Campbell now saw himself as part of the investigation and wanted to know more.

“Whatever for?” he asked.

She could feel Davis tensing beside her. She couldn't really blame him. It did feel as if this investigation was dragging. Still, she didn't want him to snap at the groundskeeper. At least he was being helpful.

To balance out the tension Davis was giving off, she told Campbell in a calm, reasonable voice, “We'd like to exhume the body to see if it's been disturbed or if there was anything taken from within the coffin.”